Too often, in young adult novels the characters have it too easy: they are white most of the time. They rarely have to think about how their parents aToo often, in young adult novels the characters have it too easy: they are white most of the time. They rarely have to think about how their parents are going to pay for something; money is just there. They usually live in the first world. Their parents are often not in the picture; they’ve checked out, somehow. In too many YA novels the characters have only the slightest of conflicts, antagonists or problems.

None of that is happily true of The Milk of Birds. In this double narrative/ epistemological novel about Nawra, who lives in a displaced refugee camp in Darfur, Sudan and K.C., who lives in Richmond, VA. K.C.’s mom signs her up to be part of a fictional pen pal program, Save the Girls. K.C. can’t read or write much when she begins the program. But with her friends’ help, her Mom’s help, and a computer program, she gets by. She also begins a help Darfur program in her high school and community. Nawra is illiterate.

Nawra is pregnant for much of the year and doesn’t/ can’t tell K.C. about from shame. (view spoiler)[ She was raped by a gang of Janjaweed over a period of weeks, yet blames herself. K.C., Save the Girls workers and a Truth and Reconciliation team help her to understand it wasn’t her fault. (hide spoiler)]

This is a wonderful, amazing book that I hope gets the wide readership it deserves. The girls in it face real issues, that they conquer to become powerful young women. I bought this book because it was on the new and noteworthy shelf at my local independent bookstore. I’m so happy to have found and read this terrific book. ["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>...more

If I could give this book six stars, I would. So if you look hard at the five I've given the book, maybe your belief can create a sixth?

“Every time tw

If I could give this book six stars, I would. So if you look hard at the five I've given the book, maybe your belief can create a sixth?

“Every time two boys kiss, it opens up the world a little more… This is the power of a kiss: It does not have the power to kill you. But it has the power to bring you to life.”

“(62)

Eight teenage boys who mostly don’t know each other, have a momentous weekend, with a sort of Greek chorus/ dead grandparents from “Family Circle” – who are gay men who died of AIDS watching, commenting, wanting, hoping to help.

Craig and Harry are attempting to set a world record for the world’s longest kiss. Ryan and Avery have just met at the gay prom. Peter and Neil have been together a year. Tariq was gay- bashed three months ago and has an i-pod full of music and arranged the cameras for Craig and Harry's kiss. (This book would be a stellar audio book with all the actors and music!) Cooper’s in a world of own; thrown out of his parents’ house, he’s spiraling, in a scary way. This book in prose, is written lyrically, as if it’s poetry, which it, joyously, sometimes breaks into.

“You can’t know what’s like for us now – you will always be one step behind. Be thankful for that. You can’t know what it was like for us then – you will always be one step ahead. Be thankful for that, too.”

(1)

“Two boys kissing. You know what this means. For us, it was a secret gesture. Secret because we were afraid. Secret because we were ashamed. Secret because it was a story that nobody was telling. But what power it had.”

(61) A Whitman poem is where the title comes from, sort of

“We two boys together clinging,/ one the other never leaving.”

(42) Neil writes Peter a poem in YA book titles that makes me very happy, and a little envious.

““’I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This’ Just Listen/ Stay/ You’re the One That I Want/ So Much Closer/ Where I Want to Be/ The Difference Between You and Me/ Positively/ Matched/ Wonder/ You Are Here/ Where I Belong/ I’ll Be There/ Along for the Ride/ The Future of Us/ Real Live Boyfriends/ Keep Holding On.”

(74) I love love love this book. I hope Levithan’s teenage audience all read this book and I hope an older crowd also reads it. It’s very wonderful and great. ...more

It’s always thrilling to reread a favorite book, in this case, a graphic novel based on the novel, with the author’s consent. Instead of quoting the mIt’s always thrilling to reread a favorite book, in this case, a graphic novel based on the novel, with the author’s consent. Instead of quoting the many famous quotes from Fahrenheit 451, I’m going to quote the introduction by Ray Bradbury.

“…Anyone reading this introduction should take the time to name the one book that he or she would most want to memorize and protect from any censors or ‘firemen.’ And not only name the book but give the reasons why they would wish to memorize it and why it would be a valuable asset to be recited and remembered in the future.”

My book this morning would be Fahrenheit 451. Why, because ideas that stray from the mainstream or that the mainstream does not approve of are always under attack and at risk of censorship. ...more

This collection was published first on Audible.com as interrelated short stories, set in the same near-future universe. I read it as a book. Of the fiThis collection was published first on Audible.com as interrelated short stories, set in the same near-future universe. I read it as a book. Of the five authors, two are already favorites: John Scalzi 7768043and Elizabeth Bear. “In the Forests of the Night” by Jay Lake introduces us to Cascadiopolis, an amalgam of the Pacific Northwest cities of Portland, Seattle and Vancouver.

“Stochasti- City” by Tobias S. Buckell is about vertical gardening in skyscrapers in Detroit and a former soldier arranging a revolution against a security company.

"The Red in the Sky is our Blood" by Elizabeth Bear is also set in Detroit and is about Cadie, who along with her daughter, is on the run from the Russian mafia.

“Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis” by John Scalzi the title means ‘use everything, but the squeal’ and it’s about a slacker kid who gets a job as a pig farmer, and the slacker stops an anarchist trying to take over New Saint Louis’ pig farms.

“To Hie from Far Cilenia” by Karl Schroeder is the only story in this collection I didn’t care for. This story is about spies trying to track down plutonium, which was fine, then it gets weird and goes to virtual cities. It began in Norway.

I got this book for Phil last Hanukah from Amazon at Don’s suggestion....more

Thirty-one new and selected short stories by one of my favorite writers. Do I hear B.D. Wong when I reread “Breaking and Entering” because he read theThirty-one new and selected short stories by one of my favorite writers. Do I hear B.D. Wong when I reread “Breaking and Entering” because he read the story on “Selected Shorts?” Yes, of course. And I hear Keir Dullea’s voice as I reread “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem,” from the same radio show. Some I know —or think I know-- I’ve read before like “The Toughest Indian in the World,” “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,” “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” “War Dances.”

I don’t believe I’ve read “The Search Engine” before. It’s about Corliss who is the first Spokane Indian she has ever heard of studying poetry at Washington State, when she finds a chapbook of poetry in the stacks there written in 1972 by a Spokane Indian she’s never heard of. “What Ever Happened to Frank Snake Church” is about a middle aged Indian who makes/ gives himself a second chance at college, college basketball and life. These short stories are gems.

I’m very glad that I have Sherman Alexie’s books and characters in my life. If you haven't read all of his novels, short stories, poems, go get them, download them -- now!Please....more

I really liked this! I liked the shape of how Laurel told her story. And I really liked the method Laurel had for telling us her story.

Laurel, a fresI really liked this! I liked the shape of how Laurel told her story. And I really liked the method Laurel had for telling us her story.

Laurel, a freshman in a new high school, is given as assignment by her English teacher, the first day of school: write a letter to a dead person. Her first letter is to Kurt Cobain, because he was her sister’s favorite. Her sister died last April. Her mother left them in Albuquerque for California. She lives with her uninvolved father one week and her Jesus freak-- but loving aunt the week after that.

She continues to write to Kurt Cobain as the year goes on, but also includes Amy Winehouse, Judy Garland, Amelia Earhart, River Phoenix, the poet Elizabeth Bishop, Jim Morrison, Heath Ledger, Janis Joplin, and others. She tells us just enough about these people I know well, and people I know less well, to get us interested in why them. Because even before Laurel’s recent losses, she was experiencing things she couldn’t process.

I’m very glad I read this. Received from Amazon Vine 4/28/14 in return for a fair review....more

I want to hug this book! Listening to it, read by Neil Gaiman, was an especial pleasure and I got to listen to it with my familyMy review from 8/3/13:

I want to hug this book! Listening to it, read by Neil Gaiman, was an especial pleasure and I got to listen to it with my family on a mini- vacation in the Berkshires.(the book on cd came from my library, I bought a copy of the physical book at the Bookstore & Get Lit Wine Bar in Lenox, MA, $8.99.)

My review from 7/19/13:

After my friend and I saw Neil Gaiman speak last month in Saratoga, we thought this would be a perfect light, easy, fun summer book for our book group to read next.

Nobody Owens, is a toddler when his parents and older sister are murdered, he winds up in a graveyard to be raised by ghosts and a vampire is made his guardian. *It takes a graveyard to raise a child, indeed!* I am so glad I reread this! And in honor of the pizza Bod and Silas have at the end of the book, I will serve my friends pizza when we meet to discuss the book, probably fruit pizza and maybe regular pizza, too.

What a delightful, full of light little book! *It takes a graveyard to raise a child, indeed!*

Nobody Owens’ (nicknamed Bod) family is murdered when he is a toddler, he runs off to the old graveyard, where the ghosts save him from the assassin, and promise to raise him.

A satire, re-telling, re-imagining of The Jungle Book. Now I‘m going to have to read that.

*I have no excuse for these identical sentences in reviews written 3 1/2 years apart except I really, really like the book. ...more

Like Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson this is a first-person slave narrative historical novel, both are set in Northern cities during the Revolution,Like Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson this is a first-person slave narrative historical novel, both are set in Northern cities during the Revolution, this one in Boston. However, Octavian is raised in Boston is a house of philosophes, or so they imagine themselves. Octavian and his mother are scientific experiments to see if Africans can be taught Greek, Latin, French, mathematics and science and become "civilized." The rational philosophers responsible for their educations don‘t see the flaw in their experiment.

It‘s a disturbing and hard to read book; for it is told in Octavian‘s voice and he, an 18th century boy/ man of the Enlightenment, has a larger vocabulary than I do. Disturbing, because these men are like Mengele; they recognize no humanity in Octavian and don‘t see the irony in their own craving for liberty, yet not allowing Octavian freedom, or even acknowledging his humanity.

“The men who raised me were lords of matter, and in the dim chambers I watched as they traced the spinning of bodies celestial in vast, iron courses, and bid sparks to dance upon their hands; they read the bodies of fish as if each dying trout or shad was a fresh Biblical Testament, the wet and twitching volume of a new-born Pentateuch. They burned holes in the air, wrote poems of love, sucked the venom from sores, painted landscapes of gloom, and made metal sing; they dissected fire like newts.” ...more

This is the fifth novel I’ve read about Columbine and it’s the best. It’s about what happened on April 20, 1999 but even more it’s about how one goesThis is the fifth novel I’ve read about Columbine and it’s the best. It’s about what happened on April 20, 1999 but even more it’s about how one goes on afterward for the survivors. “A woman who surrenders her freedom need not surrender her dignity.” His grandmother, great grandmother and aunt’s work- farm/ prison for women, his wife’s being sexually assaulted by her father as an 11 year old,(‘but he never touched me!’) his father’s alcoholism and suicide: Caelum Quirk wasn’t well and was complex before Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris came to school with rifles and bombs where he taught English and his wife Maureen was a nurse. Maureen hid in a cabinet in the library during the shootings and can’t function afterward, gets addicted to drugs, they move back to Connecticut and the farm surrounded by the jail-- and then things really get bad for Maureen and Caelum. Caelum teaches a course on the Hero’s Journey at a community college and learns as much about it in teaching it and living it as his students do.

Oh and I loved all this history, his great grandmother's letters and diaries, her need to make the world a better place. And that for a time, his grandmother succeeded. His tenant's discovering of the history he couldn't be bothered with, his aunt's and family's secrets, which were literal skeletons in the closet.

“April 20, 1999. In the days, weeks, months and years, now since they opened fire, I have searched where I could for the whys, hows and whether- or- nots of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s rampage. They had been my students first, but I became theirs, stalking them so that I might rescue my wife from the aftermath of what they’d done. On that day, Maureen had escaped execution by opening a cabinet door and entering a maze –a many corridored prison whose four outer walls were fear, anger, guilt, and grief. And because I was powerless to retrieve her –because I, too, entered the labyrinth and became lost – my only option was to find its center, confront the two- headed monster who waited for me there, and murder it. Murder the murderers, who had already murdered themselves. You see what a puzzler it was? What a network of dead ends? Like I said, I was lost.”...more

A beautifully written but heartbreaking novel about a very bad marriage.

Gil is a native and successful painter who obsessively paints portraits of hiA beautifully written but heartbreaking novel about a very bad marriage.

Gil is a native and successful painter who obsessively paints portraits of his wife. Irene, also native, sometimes working on her PhD thesis in history and art, begins to keep two diaries: she knows Gil is reading one, so she fills it with lies, intending to hurt him. The other she keeps in a bank safety deposit box. Their three children walk on egg shells, try to stay out of their way, away from their abuse and alcoholism. They live in suburban Minneapolis, in what should be a comfortable existence, but is anything but. The book is told with the two diaries and in third person, without quote marks, so it’s unclear whether these thoughts were spoken or not.

“When [Gil:] hurt [the family:], he made up for the wrong in elaborate ways. He tried. Sometimes it twisted his heart to try, sometimes he was disappointed with the results – humiliating plans for the perfect dinner at which everyone ended up miserable, or gifts that were received with bubbly gratitude and then hidden in a closet.”...more

At Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese attacked, white Morris Sullivan was rescued by a black sailor. The next time he gets leave, he visits the sailor’sAt Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese attacked, white Morris Sullivan was rescued by a black sailor. The next time he gets leave, he visits the sailor’s sister and falls in love with her. But Morris was married before he left to join the Navy. Morris and Beatrice are soul mates, though they would never use that term. Morris’ relationship with his wife Agnes suffers, though they never divorce. Beatrice has Morris’ twin daughters, and Morris has two families, in different neighborhoods of Boston.

They unite at Pearl Harbor in 1988, when the Navy awards Robert a Navy Cross. I liked this book, without loving it. (Is it possible, even probable, that one of the reasons I didn’t love this book is that the book I read before this one was The Goldfinch, which I loved. It’s not The Goldfinch. But that’s not this book’s fault.)

Until the end, Agnes is shrill and bitter. Beatrice is too forgiving and perfect. Morris is too removed and alone. I’m not sure any of them were worth each other’s devotion, fury and sacrifices. Received from ARC from Amazon Vine in return for a fair review, arrived 4/15/14. ...more

Four stars or five? I really, really liked it, but I can't give every book 5 stars, can I? If you see five stars, I decided I can.

Also cool: this bookFour stars or five? I really, really liked it, but I can't give every book 5 stars, can I? If you see five stars, I decided I can.

Also cool: this book works as both science fiction and fantasy, which is rare- ish, literary fiction and thriller, which weirdly, never happens, or only very, very rarely.

“Vartix velkor mannick wissick” (143)

The magic system in this neat, very cool novel, that takes place in the near future is based on linguistics, psychology and that knowing a person’s personality allows the magic user, or poet, to use the correct combination of sounds that can control the individual. These “poets” are named Tom Eliot, Yeats, Emily Dickinson, etc.

Also interesting to me, a lot of this book takes place in a tiny town of 3,000 in Australia’s Outback, or is it the country? Anyway, the picture of small town Australian life in a mining community is fascinating.

I borrowed the copy I read from the library system. Recommended by Emily Crowe of Odyssey Bookshop on WAMC on 7/15/14. ...more

When I bought this book new and in hardback I did something unusual for me: I bought it after only reading the back and flyleaf and some pages inside.When I bought this book new and in hardback I did something unusual for me: I bought it after only reading the back and flyleaf and some pages inside. (To be fair, the cover first caught my eye; the copy I have looks like a few frames of old film.) I’d read and heard no reviews or recommendations of this book before buying it.

I bought it because it is about a 21 year old girl living in New York City who is mad for the classic films of the ‘20’s ‘30’s and ‘40’s. She works at a vintage clothing store and often dresses like a flapper, or a girl on a breadline and is just barely making it. It’s the early ‘80’s, she shares her apartment with two gay men and downstairs lives a beautiful old woman who, she eventually finds out, made a silent movie in Hollywood that is considered lost.

Did I mention the dialogue and plot feel like they lifted from an unreleased screwball comedy made by Preston Sturges, Barbara Stanwyck and Cary Grant? Not surprisingly, I loved this. It’s like it was written for me.

“Professor Andrew Evans was a man so strange he stood out amongst mathematicians. He was dressed soberly in chinos and a v-neck sweater over a shirt, and he wasn’t scratching or talking to himself, but this was clearly a weird dude. His hair was down to just above his shoulders, a wiry mix of brown and gray, and his hairline crawled patchily back on his skull. His ears were so big they stood out through the frizz.

“He also appeared to be slightly pop-eyed, but it was hard to tell. Because Andy was staring at her. From time to time a man his age stared at her in the store, but not quite like this. She realized he had moved to shake hands. His hand was cold and damp. She had it. The Gold Rush.” (80- 81) Bought B & N 12.26.14 $24.25...more

Zee is a successful Boston psychologist, engaged to an appropriate man, but who she does not love. Her father, Finch, a Hawthorne scholar in Salem, MAZee is a successful Boston psychologist, engaged to an appropriate man, but who she does not love. Her father, Finch, a Hawthorne scholar in Salem, MA -- he lives next to the House of Seven Gables -- has thrown out his partner of 20+ years, who helped to raise Zee, her father's Parkinson's is very serious. Her mother, suffering from bipolar disorder killed herself when Zee was 12. One of Zee's patients, also suffering from bipolar disorder has just commited suicide.

Zee moves back to Salem to take care of her father and think about her life, make decisions based on what she wants. The Salem witch is Ann, a witch who lives in the Salem of the present and has a shop at Derby Street and was a friend of Maureen's and now Zee's. (She also inherited Towner's lace, but this book is no sequel to The Lace Reader.)

I quite liked this book, its over-reliance on coincidence was nearly grating, but I loved the characters, and the setting that is as crucial as a key character. And I am thrilled my family visited Salem last summer, so I get to visit that quirky small city all over again in the pages of this book.

"No one understood the concept of "if only" better than Zee. She lived it every day, though she didn't have to search to find the elusive thing. She thought she knew what her mother had wanted that day so many years ago, what might have helped lift her out of her depression. It was a book of Yeats's poetry given to Maureen by Finch on their wedding day, and it was one of her mother's treasures. Zee's "if only" had worked in reverse. If only she hadn't gotten her mother what she wanted that day, if only she hadn't left her alone, Zee might have been able to save her."

Sutty is an Indo-Canadian, raised partly in India, who is an Observer for the interstellar Ekumen. She has been sent to Aka, a world in a strangleholdSutty is an Indo-Canadian, raised partly in India, who is an Observer for the interstellar Ekumen. She has been sent to Aka, a world in a stranglehold of a Corporate government, who have outlawed all old customs and beliefs. She is given permission to live upriver, in the countryside. There she finds out what Aka is really like. Their culture and their religion, to me, seems a blend of Buddhism and Daoism and it’s based on the Telling, or stories. I loved this, it makes me want to read the Hainish books that I haven’t gotten around to and to reread the ones I have.

This seems like an excellent companion to The Sparrow and Children of God about the unintended consequences of Imperialism and Colonialism, even when those weren't intended....more

One hundred pages in, I came close to putting this novel aside. I’m glad I didn’t. I couldn’t grasp then what its genre was: contemporary, urban fantaOne hundred pages in, I came close to putting this novel aside. I’m glad I didn’t. I couldn’t grasp then what its genre was: contemporary, urban fantasy, magical realism, mystery, horror, YA. Or perhaps it’s strange and odd, and all of those genres?

Chloe’s older sister Ruby makes many promises to her sister. She will always be there. She’ll save her. Chloe can’t drown. But Ruby has a rule too: Chloe must never leave the town limits. Ruby has a strange pull on the people in the town, that sounds a lot like Woodstock, NY. Boys who used to be her boyfriend drive Chloe and Ruby around, no questions asked. Ruby puts out helium balloons with intentions on them: “Bring me a milk shake, bury $8 in your yard & mark it with a red ribbon so I can find it, leave a good book on your doorstep for me to take.” (205) And six other things that strangers and friends do. This is a compelling novel that I am glad I read.

I borrowed the copy I read from the library system. Read it upon Kat Rosenfield’s suggestion at Hobart Book Village Festival of Women Writers....more

I like the protagonist Cameron, but I wish the book had been edited. There’s entirely too much detail! Do we need to know the name of every song she dI like the protagonist Cameron, but I wish the book had been edited. There’s entirely too much detail! Do we need to know the name of every song she danced to at the prom she attended when was in ninth grade? (Yes.) I think the book would work as well, if every other sentence and every other scene had been left out. I like foreshadowing, but the holy roller church her aunt has her attend, we know it’s going to be bad news, couldn’t Cameron have saved herself a lot of grief by going back to the Presbyterian Church her parents attended? Maybe, but that wouldn’t have been Cameron. And the detail made this read more like an adult coming of age book, than a YA coming of age book. Cameron and the other characters in the book has a complexity usually missing in YA books.

I loved the setting, rural eastern Montana; where the swimming pool Cameron’s swim team meets at is a pond. Where the highlight of the year is Miles City Bucking Horse Sale. Where her girlfriend Coley gets her own apartment in town, because she lives forty miles away on a ranch. (Where it seems to me that Coley’s brother’s drinking is much more of a problem than Coley and Cameron’s gayness.) When Cameron was twelve her parents were killed in a car accident. Afterwards, she lives with her aunt and grandmother. Her aunt is horrible, but she thinks she loves a version of Cameron. Just not the version of Cameron we readers see. This is a very, very good novel from a debut author, who I hope gets a lot of deserved attention and writes a lot more. ...more

This is not a historical novel that’s an escape, nor is it ‘beach reading.’ It’s a debut novel of ideas and not drama, of character and community. It’This is not a historical novel that’s an escape, nor is it ‘beach reading.’ It’s a debut novel of ideas and not drama, of character and community. It’s set in rural Tennessee, when that was the west.

Richardson is a slave owner, molded by the Revolution. He knows owning slaves is wrong, but he does it. Wash is named after the first president and Richardson hires him out for stud, to resolve debts, not understanding, or caring, what this will do to him. Pallas is the midwife/ healer on the next farm over, who heals them both. Told in the POV of each of these characters, this wasn’t always easy to read, and sometimes it felt like little happened, but it does. Set from 1812 to twenty years beyond 1825, that’s how one of the characters puts it, we see how the country, Tennessee and Memphis come to be. I’m very glad I read this and I think many others will count themselves glad to have read it as well.

Richardson: “It was a Thursday in late March of 1796 when I first laid eyes on Mena… Then she turned to look at me. You would have thought she felt my eyes on her. She didn’t glance at me and then away like most of them. Mena gazed at me even and steady until I began to wonder what she saw in me.” (54)

Wash: “Turns out there’s a way to give in without losing. You got to find some slack in you. Just this side of your breaking point. Each of us got a different breaking point, according to who you are and the life you get born inside.” (218)

“Pallas can only shake her head each time she witnesses the true craziness of some white folks. With Richardson, if his mouth does not form the words and tell them to somebody, then the thought itself never crossed his mind. No wonder white folks think if something never gets told, then it didn’t happen.” (406)

I received this as an ARC from Amazon Vine, in return for a fair review....more

I read this book because Bitch Media (yes, that’s its name..) put it on a list of 100 feminist YA novels, then they took it off. (This, Sisters Red byI read this book because Bitch Media (yes, that’s its name..) put it on a list of 100 feminist YA novels, then they took it off. (This, Sisters Red by Pearce and Living Dead Girl by Scott were the three with this distinction.) I loved Sisters Red, they were wrong to take it off their list. I won’t say I loved Tender Morsels, but I’m very glad I read it.

Liga is a traumatized teen mother who magically escapes to her own personal heaven in this daring and deeply moving fantasy. In the novel, Liga's daughters—one born of incest, the other of gang rape—first flourish in Liga's safe world. The younger daughter, Urdda, and subsequently her sister and Liga are drawn back into the real world in which cruelty, hurt, and prejudice abound. But it is also only there that they can experience the range of human emotion, develop deep relationships, and discover who they truly are. While the story explores what it means to be human, it is at its heart an incisive exploration of the uses and limitations of dissociation as a coping mechanism. Beautifully written and surprising, this is a novel not to be missed. ...more

This novel is a mystery and a romance, but neither of those genres are with capital letters, in my opinion. It’s also about returning Iraq war vets inThis novel is a mystery and a romance, but neither of those genres are with capital letters, in my opinion. It’s also about returning Iraq war vets in a small town in the Adirondacks trying to adjust to being back home. Russ, a Vietnam vet and the Police Chief of Millers Killer Police Department in Washington County, his girlfriend Clare who is just back from Iraq, where she flew helicopters, but in Millers Kill she’s the Anglican priest. How Clare and her fellow vets deal --or don’t – with their physical and emotional disabilities is the heart of this wonderful novel. This is number 7 in a series, but I’m not sure I want to go back and read from the beginning. 1) I like where and who they are now. 2) I read too many series and this stood alone just fine. 3) I liked coming in media res, meeting them now, as though I am new to town, without the baggage they don’t want to tell me. But I am looking forward to #8. ...more

**spoiler alert** I liked this book very much for the look at my past- neighbors the Shakers, though this takes place in Tyrington, MA, not Watervliet**spoiler alert** I liked this book very much for the look at my past- neighbors the Shakers, though this takes place in Tyrington, MA, not Watervliet, NY. Young Polly has a father who rapes her, who is drunkard, who beats her and her mother, and caused her younger brother to be brain- damaged. When their house burns down, she gathers her mother, her brother and leaves. Her mother deposits the children at the local Shaker settlement. The work there is similar to what Polly is used to, but the dancing in the first Meeting she attends, makes her flashback to her father and the Shakers think she is their first Visionist. She tells them she saw angels.

What I didn’t care for about this book, is interspersed between chapters from Polly’s point of view, her first friend Sister Charity and the leader of the settlement, Elder Sister Agnes are the chapters from the fire inspector. The mystery in this novel was no mystery, unnecessary, and distracting, in my opinion.

I read this because the author did a very good interview with Joe Donahue of The Book Show on WAMC and for my 2014 A- Z author’s challenge....more

Four generations of a Satmar Hasidic family from 1939 in Transylvania to 2012 in Williamsburg, NY in each and in some there are multiple members who bFour generations of a Satmar Hasidic family from 1939 in Transylvania to 2012 in Williamsburg, NY in each and in some there are multiple members who believe themselves to be “forbidden.” One young man has nocturnal emissions. One young woman is intellectually curious. She knows that she will have to leave her community to continue learning, and never see her parents again. Her adopted sister, from a family that was murdered by the Nazis goes to great extremes -- to conceive.

And the biggest secret of them all, is one that many in the greater world knows, but the Satmar Hasidim do not, according to this book. The Satmar Rebbe Joel Tietlebaum, who refused Israel and Zionism all his life, was secreted out of Bergen Belsen with his family and some allies by a Zionist to Switzerland. Then he allowed the Zionist to be executed as a Nazi sympathizer. I quite enjoyed this novel and its characters. While I haven’t recently read Chaim Potok, comparisons to his novels are apt.

I received this from the publisher through Read it Forward on 3/27/12. ...more

This novel, or is it a novella, or is it linked short stories? is told in rhymed couplets. I almost repeated that, so surprising and unusual it is, buThis novel, or is it a novella, or is it linked short stories? is told in rhymed couplets. I almost repeated that, so surprising and unusual it is, but better is a demonstration, from wherever I open the book:

“There were stories of girls, all summarily sacked, who/ Found out they no longer had jobs to come back to,/ At least she had that, but she started to feel/ That it hardly seemed worth it to work for a heel./ For each passing day found her feeling less grateful/ Primarily ‘cause he was horrible and hateful./”(50 about Helen)

I could hear David Rakoff as I read this, so regular a listener to "This American Life" am I, which may be better than listening to him read this, because in an audio version of this book you wouldn’t get the wonderful portraits of each character.

One of the most interesting, original, breathtaking books I've read this year. Also, it has one of the best covers I've seen....more

Kiwi and his sister Ava Bigtree have just lost their mother to cancer, their sister to mental illness (or is it fancy and fantasy?) and their father hKiwi and his sister Ava Bigtree have just lost their mother to cancer, their sister to mental illness (or is it fancy and fantasy?) and their father has left them on their empty island amusement park, called Swamplandia! and the tourists have stopped coming too. Kiwi is 17 and dreams of going to school on the mainland and getting into Harvard. He gets a job at Swamplandia!’s competition The World of Darkness, to pay off the mortgage. Osceola, has 15 year old sister is in love with Dredgeman who died long ago and has eloped with him to the Underworld. 13 year old Ava takes off after Ossie with the mysterious Bird Man.

This is beautifully written, but I didn’t buy the basic premise. I wanted there to be chapters from Os’ POV, too. Was she crazy? Was she in love with a ghost? Yes, this is the 1960’s or 1970’s, but Chief Bigtree faced no repercussions after taking off and leaving his teenagers alone for months with hundreds of alligators?...more

This book is all about loss, grief and love. It’s 1926 on a teeny island 100 miles from the Australian southwest coast, Janus Rock, where there’s a liThis book is all about loss, grief and love. It’s 1926 on a teeny island 100 miles from the Australian southwest coast, Janus Rock, where there’s a lighthouse. Tom operates the lighthouse and his wife Isabel has had three miscarriages/ stillbirths. A dead man and a baby arrive in a row boat two weeks after the most recent stillbirth. They raise the baby as their own, but she has a mother on the mainland who misses her terribly. Up until the living mother, the loneliness of Janus Rock, the couple’s grief and the baby appearing reminded me of The Snow Child, one of my favorite books that I read last year. Isabel’s two brothers did not come home from World War I, Tom came home, but he is changed, as so many men in the book are, all of the adult characters have lost babies at birth and just after, or as children. Everyone grieves all the time, in this book.

“[Isabel] knew that if a wife lost a husband, there was a whole new word to describe who she was: she was now a widow. A husband became a widower. But if a parent lost a child, there was no special label for their grief. They were still a just father or a mother, even if they no longer had a son or daughter. That seemed odd.” (123)...more

So begins this litera‘“It’s official,” Harley said. “They killed the Berliner two nights ago. You’re the last.” Then after a pause: “I’m sorry.”’ (3)

So begins this literary novel about a werewolf. Jake Marlowe is alone and introspective about it, he’s 201 years old in March and contemplating suicide. The Hunt of WOCOP (World Organization for the Control of Occult Phenomena) has been too successful at its mission. But along the way he is kidnapped by rogue vampires, then kidnapped by rogue WOCOP members but he has his own agency and abilities as well. Jake isn’t a good man, he would be the first to say so, he’s a killer, a murderer, biology necessitates it, and he’s profane, again biology. This isn’t a sexy book, again some won’t like this. But I found Jake’s story is compelling reading and I am looking forward to reading the books that follow this one....more

Pancho’s older mildly retarded sister has just died, been murdered he believes. His father died a few months before, which I believe was no accident,Pancho’s older mildly retarded sister has just died, been murdered he believes. His father died a few months before, which I believe was no accident, as he believes, but manslaughter and his mother died when he was 5 years old. He's an angry, lonely young man. He winds up at an orphanage and meets DQ who is dying of brain cancer. Pancho is determined to track down the man who killed his sister. DQ is determined to write his Manifesto of the Death Warriors, to date Marisol and to live. Pancho and DQ help each other, go on a road trip in New Mexico in this intense, wonderful, deep reimagining of Don Quixote.

Even though I've told some of the plot, there are few spoilers as most of this is in the first few pages, and the rest, well, I predict you'll enjoy reading it so much that you won't care. ...more

When Duncan moves into his own room as a senior at the private Irving Academy on the Hudson River in Upstate New York, he receives from Tim Macbeth CDWhen Duncan moves into his own room as a senior at the private Irving Academy on the Hudson River in Upstate New York, he receives from Tim Macbeth CDs in his own first person voice telling him what his own senior year was like, the year before, what he was thinking and feeling and how much in love he was with Vanessa the girlfriend of the most popular boy in school. This is a boy who is somewhat Moriarty- like in his evil-ness.

Tim is an albino and he is used to being an outcast, giving him a Richard the III-like disability? At Irving though, there’s a stone arch at the entrance that says “Enter here to be and find a friend.” (2) The Tragedy Paper is a 15 page paper assigned by the senior English teacher and the themes of magnitude, hubris, tragic heroes, fatal flaws, order to chaos and back to order all figure prominently in this novel. A couple of the adults remark on Duncan and Macbeth not being enemies, while they at school together they barely knew each other, except for one key incident, but I’d like to think once Duncan hears Macbeth’s story that is remedied after the book is over. I’m very glad I read this.

I got this book from the Amazon vine program in return for an hones review. ...more

Seventeen year old Cullen Witter tells us about what happens in Lily, AR, a sleepy southern town where nothing happens, the summer when things do happSeventeen year old Cullen Witter tells us about what happens in Lily, AR, a sleepy southern town where nothing happens, the summer when things do happen. A woodpecker that’s been extinct since 1940 has been spotted; news media and birdwatchers come from all over hoping to see it. And Cullen’s 15 year old brother Gabriel vanishes. Cullen feels like the town only cares about the woodpecker. Meanwhile, we are also told about a failed missionary in Africa, which doesn’t seem to connect to what’s happening in Lily, but does. (view spoiler)[And, Cullen imagines people turning into/ being zombies and the woodpecker talking to him-- or does he? (hide spoiler)] I really, really liked this novel, which is marketed as a YA novel, but could work very well for adults as well, a lot....more

“All Gender U” by Sandra McDonald is about Lin and the inclusive college she dreams of attending, since she was born a boy. “Only Lost Boys Are Found”“All Gender U” by Sandra McDonald is about Lin and the inclusive college she dreams of attending, since she was born a boy. “Only Lost Boys Are Found” by Steve Berman is about an unnamed second-person narrator rescuing/ locating Neil, the boy he likes, from a literal or is it figurative closet, with the help of Neil’s brother, a bully, and the narrator’s mean sister. “The Spark of Change” by Dia Pannes is about Miriam and her Dad, when she helps put out at a fire, at her teacher’s house, when her Dad, the Assistant Rescue Chief, won’t, and teaches him and her town a lot.